Iceboxhttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com
Haiku express moments; hailstones are momentary things; frozen in time, they are stored here in the circle's icebox
Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:07:58 +0000 en
hourly
1 http://wordpress.com/https://secure.gravatar.com/blavatar/7b1c715bbdcd09cd904a12485f855880?s=96&d=https%3A%2F%2Fs0.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngIceboxhttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com
Burns’ Haiku?https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/burns-haiku/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/burns-haiku/#commentsThu, 21 Mar 2019 02:58:31 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8768On April 2, two or three members of the Hailstone Haiku Circle will join the Meguro International Haiku Circle for an English haiku ginko and reading event in the Yanaka-Ueno district of Tokyo. For many years, their kukai was led by Catherine Urquhart, who has now returned to the UK and created the Edinburgh Haiku Circle. In the MIHC’s 2014 book, Haiku: 20th Anniversary, kindly sent me by Yasuomi Koganei, there is a piece by Catherine entitled, If Burns had been a haiku poet …, and with her permission, I will here reproduce five of her lovely ‘Japanese haiku’ versions of passages from poems by the 18th Century Scottish Bard, Robert Burns, who was a contemporary of Issa and, with his eye on the poor man, animals, insects and the uncompromising weather, very much kindred of spirit..

鋤牛を放す農家や日短しsukiushi o hanasu nouka ya hi mijikashi

farmer unfastening
his oxen from the plough
fast the night draws in

(from The Cotter’s Saturday Night)

霜柱乞食仲間の酔いと恋shimobashira kojiki nakama no yoi to koi

needles of frost
love and drunkenness
among beggars

(from The Jolly Beggars)

礼拝す美人の帽に虱着くreihai su bijin no bou ni shirami tsuku

Sunday worship
a louse takes up position
on a beauty’s hat

(from To a Louse)

友土葬草におのおの露の玉tomo dosou kusa ni onoono tsuyu no tama

friend in the earth
on each and every blade of grass
a dewy diamond

(from Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson)

夜の滝迷子羊の帰り待つyoru no taki maigo hitsuji no kaeri matsu

in the night
the waterfall and the wait
for my lost lamb

(from My Hoggie)

]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/burns-haiku/feed/7TitoPoll: Chief Characteristics of English Haiku (Mar. 2019 update)https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/poll-chief-characteristics-of-english-haiku-mar-2019-update/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/poll-chief-characteristics-of-english-haiku-mar-2019-update/#commentsSun, 10 Mar 2019 03:02:50 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8746If you scroll down the right-hand margin of the Icebox top page, you will find a poll, in which everyone is still most welcome to participate – just once! The software has the ability to prevent second-timers or those who would try to choose more than 3 options. People from all over the world have taken part. If you click on the words ‘See Results’ at the bottom of the poll area, you will see the latest number of votes for each characteristic. Clicking there in Mar. 2019, I notice that we have now had 200 people return their idea of what might be the ‘Three Chief Characteristics of English Haiku’, so perhaps it’s time again to look at some of the poll’s emerging conclusions.

The two categories of Juxtaposition and Cut/break now total 89 votes together, which means that almost one in two people think that aspect is crucial. In Japanese haiku these are known, respectively, as 取合せ toriawase and 切れ kire and may be viewed as related features. It is true, however, that there are ‘un-cut’ haiku in both the Japanese and the English haiku-writing worlds. No, break is not an absolute requisite.

In second place, I notice that Originality and Poetic voice have thus far together polled 72 votes … and Resonance and Open-endedness garnered 71 between them. For now, allow me to put aside the first, Originality, which is a requisite of all poetry, not just haiku. I shall keep that quality of ‘expansiveness’ (Resonance) in mind, though, as we continue through the top of the league.

More or less equal in third place, we have Moment and Present tense (aggregating 64), and Brevity and Omission (aggregating 57). Ordinary present-simple and present-continuous tenses clearly rule the roost in English haiku-writing, but a ‘Present moment’ quality is not something that is considered in Japan, where verbs may come in many different tenses and might even sometimes be a touch classical in tone. Brief expression is obviously a requisite of haiku, though how brief exactly is open to debate.

As most will already know, the three chief characteristics of the classical Japanese haiku are: 1. 5-7-5 form, 2. Seasonal reference, and 3. Break (often using a cutting word). In spite of plenty of experimentation over the last 100 years, 5-7-5 kana letters as a single line is still today the normal style in Japan. Looking again at our poll results, I find that 5-7-5 and 3-lines together polled only 31 votes from 200 people. Seasonal reference gathered in just 38 votes; the same number, interestingly, as Real experience. I propose now to add Real experience (38 votes) to Present moment (64): and we get 102, which brings it to the top of the charts!

It is thus tempting to conclude that the three most important characteristics of English haiku, at least from this poll as it stands today, are:……… 1. The present moment (102 votes)……… 2. Break (with or without punctuation) (89)……… 3. An expansive quality felt at poem’s end (71).
Concision is in fourth place (57).

The English haiku poet’s craft, when thus analyzed, may appear to be quintessentially about the vividness of the Present situation and the utilization of Break as a technique through which to create Resonance for the reader learning of it. Being a Brief expression is evidently also highly valued, as it should be, although free-form haiku is clearly the current norm. For me personally, I was a little sad that Sound/cadence has thus far only polled 21 votes – one in ten: not insignificant, but definitely a minor characteristic for most. This is no doubt partly because of the almost puritanical minimalism that has reigned supreme since around 2005 in most of the leading haiku mags and sites, according musicality little importance. Icebox is in this respect rather different. Seasonality is probably in fifth place (38, and there’s nothing to couple it with): again, slightly disheartening for one who was born in Britain and now lives in Kyoto – a city with a deeply seasonal flow. The English-writing world is such a big place!

Your comments on this interim overview are welcome. Just click on the word ‘comments’ below to open up the reply box. Feel free to tweet it or to share it on Facebook. Next report? Perhaps after another 200 have responded!

]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/poll-chief-characteristics-of-english-haiku-mar-2019-update/feed/3TitoEllishttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/ellis/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/ellis/#commentsFri, 01 Mar 2019 14:39:29 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8770Dear friend and Hailstone member, Ellis Avery, passed away on Feb. 15 of this year. She had been fighting cancer for quite a while, and several of her friends here in Kansai knew of this. A few of us were fortunate to have had dinner with her on what we now know to have been her last trip to her beloved Kyoto, in December 2018. Some of us were given her latest Haiku Datebook containing her daily English haiku for the last full year of her regretfully shortened life. The first poem in it goes:

………. Bright sun, blue Charles,………. her hand in mine. So thankful………. for this day, so keen for more.

The Charles is the name of the river running through Boston, MA, where she lived with her wife, Sharon Marcus, and where my own grandmother lived in later life and died (but at more than double Ellis’ age of 46). This haiku especially brings tears to my eyes.

Some of you may remember Ellis as a contributor to Hibikiai Forum, as a judge of the Genjuan International Haibun Contest or perhaps, more likely, as a prize-winning novelist. Amongst her works outside of haiku were The Smoke Week (2003), The Teahouse Fire (2006), and The Last Nude (2012). She was not only a brilliant writer and fine poet, but also a most compassionate person: in fact she had been training to become a nurse. Our thoughts go out to Sharon. Her artistic legacy will survive!

.. Approaching a shaft of light in the winter grey of the Japan Sea at Miyazu, I came across some wild ducks sleeping in a loch. The pine-clad isthmus, Amanohashidate (the Bridge of Heaven), stretched on, pointing towards Buson’s Temple, a rickety shack at the back of the town – Kenshōji 見性寺.

.. With that image in mind, I stepped through into the precincts, soon to be greeted by resident priest, Umeda Jikō, gaunt and smiley... “Have you come for Buson?”, he asked.

.. Shoes off – how cold the floor! Respectfully offering a prayer before the Amida Buddha there, we turned to an improvised display of things from Buson’s time in Miyazu, including two or three remarkable paintings – not haiga, but nanga – of what I took to be Chinese immortals. But which immortals? And why the mysterious plumes of white breath? Do they indicate a type of energy (qi 気) perhaps? Or it is just that the air was cold (seeing one’s breath)? For a moment, I focused in front of my mouth and … sure enough, my breath was visible, too!.. Buson had come to Miyazu in 1754, aged 39, to stay with his friend, the priest of Kenshōji, Chikkei 竹渓 (barefoot on left in the picture below by Buson). He spent much of the next few years there, participating in a haiku circle, changing his family name from Taniguchi to Yosa (a village by the Bridge of Heaven) and taking a local wife, Tomo, who soon gave birth to a daughter, Kuno. In Miyazu, he also developed his skill as a painter, turning to this profession when he eventually returned to Kyoto. I wondered if the assured brushwork of the paintings in the temple might just be that of a senior painter at the time, with whom he was studying. One of the paintings has a signature, the second character of which looked like the kei 渓 of Chikkei 竹渓, but the first is not recognizable and is surely not chiku 竹 bamboo.

.. As I left the temple, Jikō turned to me and said, ‘Next time, please stay.’

P.S. If anyone has an idea who the breathy mountain men are in the pictures, or who might have painted them, please leave a comment below. It didn’t seem as if Jikō himself was sure.

]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/02/10/seeking-buson/feed/8TitoGenjuan International Haibun Contest 2019 – deadline approaches!https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/8702/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/8702/#commentsWed, 09 Jan 2019 13:37:51 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8702Three more weeks till the deadline for entries into this year’s Genjuan International Haibun Contest. Details here. The office is usually lenient with entries arriving a few days late. The three judges include newly-appointed Toru Kiuchi, Vice Director of the International Division at the Museum of Haiku Literature. They will read your works without knowing authors’ identities and will be looking for haikai style, best understood by reading examples. Check out our haibun pages through the page links at top right. Click the hailstones ‘Icebox’ header photo to return to this top page anytime. Good luck!
]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/8702/feed/1TitoFinding Sekiteihttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/finding-sekitei/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/12/28/finding-sekitei/#commentsFri, 28 Dec 2018 10:50:30 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8679Late November. I climbed Mt. Takamiyama (1,248m, ‘Kansai’s Matterhorn’) on the border between Nara and Mie. Found a little snow at the top, where there’s a shrine to Yatagarasu, the giant three-legged crow, guide of the first emperor, emblem of Kumano Jinja (and of Japan’s national football team). The scene was almost biblical: a mountain ark..

The Messenger Crow’s Mount —
there below, autumn ranges
north, south, east and west …………….Tito.

After the descent, took a dip at Takasumi Hot Spring. Of this, another time. The bathhouse receptionist gave me a map, however, on which was marked “Sekitei-an”, a haiku poet’s hermitage elsewhere in the village of Higashi Yoshino. I remembered the name from Blyth’s History of Haiku. Although Blyth has him in Meiji, he is actually one of the best of the Taisho period haiku poets. I began to envisage a Hailstone event there next year. In the meantime, here are two of his beautifully alliterative/assonant verses for the winter season. Happy New Year!.

.. The trolls at Fowlmere live under the bridges, and sometimes under the boardwalks that meander through the marshy reed beds. They live in the damp, shady places, loathing the sunlight and will eat you if you don’t answer their questions correctly or give them the gifts that they ask for. Fortunately, there are many opportunities to appease them in order to cross their bridges to safety. They ask us what our favourite colours are (which we have rehearsed well beforehand); sometimes they ask for leaves or berries, sticks, songs, poems or numbers. They are as fickle as the wind and the rain.

dragonflies
circling the gunnera*
two feet wide

.. At the old watercress beds, the pump galoops water… and our dresses are wet to the knees. The trolls won’t eat the spicy, bitter watercress, but we like it with our apples and crackers. The chalk-bed stream water is so clear that Ophelia floats by on luminous weeds, as we throw blackberries on her and the silky, seed-expanded heads of reeds.

dried-up reed beds:
from the hide
Florence blows shut
the windows

.. We are becoming familiar with the different families of trolls: some are nicer than others, can even be experienced as kind. We try to understand their natures. Still, we are left alone to climb trees and make dens.

Here are some pictures of the two days spent with you.
Blue sky and sun to accompany us.
Steep memories and some more stones now on my shelves.
A juniper bonsai that breathes once more.
Basho over the water.
The desire to see you again.

Stalked by a grey heron —
the floating isle
of Midorogaike…………………………..Richard

Sleepy, at this water’s edge,
where wild boars roam…………………………..Hitomi

By the roadside,
alone with his ghost,
a taxi driver dozing…………………………..Ursula

Goddess of the pond,
her silent face…………………………..Tomiko

Feels like
a reed pipe
playing in the distance…………………………..Teruko

A lunatic scream
pierces the air…………………………..Branko

Uprooted trees
shelter their young —
echoes of the Ice Age…………………………..Akira

Feeding the marsh,
a handful of sprinkled acorns…………………………..Hitomi

Green brooch
on a red sports-car:
the praying mantis…………………………..Mayumi

The mood of these trees
in all their colours…………………………..Gerald

Poets wandering
beside the lake —
cold hunter’s moon…………………………..Ayako

At last, one bubble
makes it to the surface…………………………..Tito

.
Editor’s footnote: this ginko-no-renga was composed after a memorable composition stroll around Midorogaike (Midoro Pond) in Kitayama, Kyoto on 4 Nov. 2018. It was compiled by David McCullough with assistance from host, Branko Manojlovic. Most but not all of the 13 participants got a verse in. We hope to do another by a pond in Osaka next spring!

After a box lunch taken in the harvest rice-fields near Omiwa Shrine 大神神社 and a visit to Omononushi’s ancient cryptomeria in the main compound, the five poets intending to scale Mount Miwa (467m, to the north of Sakurai) have first to obtain permission at Sai Jinja 狭井神社. They are issued with a route map and pilgrims’ garlands to wear around their necks, each supporting a small bell that jingles all the way up to the summit. All pledge to remain silent throughout the climb. Tito decides to climb barefoot. Here are a few of the haiku from this first day.

After the descent, talk resumes at Hibara Jinja* 檜原神社 a little way along the Yamanobe Old Path. Later that evening, at Wakaba Minshuku*, haiku are shared, appreciated, rejected, and occasionally reworked, until the wine is drunk and midnight has long passed.

Oct. 14, 2018 – Mt. Goharetsu 御破裂山

Two poets return home, but another joined the haike last night. It’s a cool, early autumn morning and four poets are searching for a path over Mount Goharetsu* (610m). Their destination is Tanzan Shrine 談山神社 and its annual “Kakitsusai” 嘉吉祭 harvest festival, which is due to start in a few hours.

Their route takes them through the streets of Asuka 明日香 into its eastern foothills, past locals tending their crops, and up into the tall, straight trunks of cypress and cedars growing on the mountainside.

Another step
on rising earth,
interrupted —
span of silver thread………………………… William

The entomologist —
showing us his bagged live specimens
in a dreary wood………………………… Tito

The trees close in and
catch our voices — their reply
a soft mockery………………………… William

They reach Tanzan Shrine, a burst of Japanese architecture, and find the festival’s main ritual is already underway. Removing their shoes, they shuffle quietly into one wide room—open at the back to a sunlit veranda hung with iron lanterns—and join the worshippers. To the shrill accompaniment of gagaku*, many elaborate displays of fruits and vegetables are brought out from deep within the shrine, carefully passed from priest to priest. A glimpse is had of a statue of the enshrined deity, Fujiwara no Kamatari*, whom the festival honours.

The Shinto priest:
a single green pepper
atop his chestnut offering………………………… Richard

For another year
priest pulls the curtain down
on the clan divinity —
his long, plaintive wail………………………… Tito

The festival complete, our pilgrims head back into the sun, retrieving lunch boxes from their backpacks.

tier upon tier,
the surrounding trees are touched
by new scarlet………………………… William

The summit of Goharetsu is attained after a further short climb. To where next year?

* Notes
Haike – haiku hike
Snake God Tree – an ancient sugi (cryptomeria) thought to be a yorishiro (conductor) for Okuninushi, who comes in the form of a snakekomorebi – sunshine filtered through branches
Hibara Jinja – a Shinto compound lacking any hall for its divinity, Amaterasu, and thought to be the first Ise Shrine
Wakaba Minshuku – a rustic inn beside Okadera Temple in Asuka
Mt. Goharetsu – to the southeast of Asuka, part of which is commonly referred to as “Tonomine”
Mt. Katsuragi – a peak (959m) to the west of Asuka famed as the haunt of the C7th mystic, En no Gyojagagaku – ancient court music, featuring reeds and pipes
Fujiwara no Kamatari – instigator of the Taika Reforms in C7th and founder of the Fujiwara clan

]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/hailstones-17th-autumn-haike-mt-miwa-and-tanzan-shrine/feed/5PluvialisRoller Coaster – extensionhttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/roller-coaster-part-ii/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/roller-coaster-part-ii/#commentsTue, 23 Oct 2018 10:49:14 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8570I read aloud the original 19-verse Roller Coaster sequence from the Icebox as a contribution to an international haiku meeting held in Ljubljana, Slovenia in early September. I had not been expecting a further episode, but Kansai was again badly hit by natural disaster when, on Sep. 4, Typhoon Jebi (No. 21) blew through, our strongest storm for at least 25 years. I have here collected some of the recent haiku written by our Circle as a kind of extension of our summer 2018 ‘roller coaster ride’. Thank you to our members for sharing them. .. (SHG)

STORM (9)

last sunflowers —
they stand to attention
facing the typhoon

signboards and roofs
plucked into the air —
the autumn gale ……………………………….. both, Mayumi K.

]]>https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/roller-coaster-part-ii/feed/2TitoGenjuan International Haibun Contest 2019: submissions, new judge, new bookhttps://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/genjuan-international-haibun-contest-2019-submissions-new-judge-new-book/
https://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/genjuan-international-haibun-contest-2019-submissions-new-judge-new-book/#commentsFri, 12 Oct 2018 01:44:44 +0000http://hailhaiku.wordpress.com/?p=8565The Genjuan Contest office is now open to receive your submissions for 2019. Closing deadline will be 31 Jan. (although a day or two beyond is usually OK).

Last year, three of four judges were based in Japan, with Angelee Deodhar, giving us her gifted support from India. With Angelee’s sudden passing and the retirement of emeritus judge, Nenten Tsubo’uchi, we decided to ask Toru Kiuchi to join us as judge this year. We were delighted when he accepted the appointment. He is a former Professor of English at Nihon University, Vice Director of the International Division at the Museum of Haiku Literature, Tokyo, as well as author of the recently published book, American Haiku: New Readings (Lexington Books). We welcome him to the role and give a deep bow to Nenten for all he has contributed to the Contest.

The rules remain the same as last year. How about entering a piece or two? There are real prizes, certificates and judges’ comments for the winners, and it’s free! Address of our officer, Eiko Mori, and other details are given in the Genjuan 2019 Guidelines .

Finally, it is worth mentioning again that the Genjuan Contest Decorated Works 2015-17 anthology, complete with judges’ comments and examples of contemporary Japanese haibun, was published by us earlier this year. The pale green book with a painting by Buson on its cover is entitled, From the Cottage of Visions. Details of how to order are give on our Publications page, too.